Sunday, September 30, 2012

This article about a miscarriage of justice is by Kathy Ancar, an editor and good friend of mine.

Florida
man gets 20 years in state prison for shooting car

By
Kathy Ancar

As he did every Saturday night
for the previous four years, on August 20, 2011, single dad Joseph A. Blaine Dejoie
IV, prepared for work while his seven-year-old daughter played nearby.Joseph’s custody agreement called for his
daughter to be picked up by her mother, Dina Moreno West, from Joseph’s place
of employment on Saturday nights. Two days prior, Mr. Dejoie testified against
Mr. & Mrs. West in custody court, where he sought more time with his
daughter.

On this particular Saturday
evening, Joseph’s father (Joseph Dejoie III) received a telephone call from
Mrs. West asking, “Are you home?”Finding this strange, Mr. Dejoie III immediately called his son and
warned him to be careful during the handoff.Mr. Dejoie III had reason to be concerned by the call because Mr.& Mrs. West had a longstanding history of
threatening his son. Mr. West, in particular, had on more than one occasion
threatened to shoot Mr. Dejoie. This fact has been corroborated by Mr. Dejoie,
III, who repeatedly mediated discussions between the Wests and his son.

As they spoke, Joseph told his
father, “It’s okay Dad.She’s pulling up
now, and she’s alone. I’ll call you back in a minute.” When several minutes passed
with no call from his son, Mr. Dejoie III called his son’s cell phone. After
repeated attempts to reach his son failed, the call was finally answered – by a
Pensacola Police Department officer, who informed Mr. Dejoie III that his son
had just shot Marcus West, his daughter’s stepfather.

When he arrived on the scene,
Mr. Dejoie III learned that just as he and his son hung up their phones, Marcus
West pulled up in his car, charged across the lawn, shoved and forcefully bore
his forefinger into Joseph’s forehead, and began arguing about the custody
hearing. Attempting to avoid the situation escalating further, Joseph ordered
Mr. West to leave.Several neighbors
testified that they did indeed hear a man yell, “Get off my lawn,” several
times. Mrs. West also pleaded with her husband to leave, to no avail. Mr. West
ignored his wife’s pleas, and in fact, according to Mr. Dejoie, cursed her and
pushed her into her car when she attempted to intervene.According to Joseph Dejoie, and neighbors who
witnessed the scene, West then claimed to have “something that will blow you
and your house down!”

At this point, only after
repeated demands that Marcus West leave his property, Joseph pulled a handgun
from his belt and again ordered Mr. West off his lawn.Mr. West leaned over and reached into his
car, and Joseph fired his weapon, hitting Mr. West in the legs and buttocks.Only then did Mr. West get into the car.
Joseph, fearing that Mr. West was now inside the vehicle where he said he had a
weapon, ordered him to show his hands. Mr. West continued to rummage under his
seat, so Joseph shot again, hitting the car, but not Mr. West. Mr. West fled
the scene. Joseph called 911, as had several neighbors before shots rang out,
who reported hearing a loud argument between a man and a woman. Joseph remained
on the phone with the operator until police arrived. Officers arrived on the
scene within minutes.

After speaking with Joseph, the
first officer on the scene said to him that this appeared to be a clear-cut
case of self-defense. After all, Joseph was assaulted on his own front lawn.
However, continued the officer, it all depends on how it is written up in the
police report.

The investigator, who did not
interview all the witnesses, “summarized” the statements of those she did
interview. Neighbors who had called police came outside to tell what they heard
and saw, only to be told to go back inside. As a result, Joseph was arrested!
Not only that, the attacker, Mr. West, who was treated and released from the
hospital two days later, was never charged or arrested. Remember, Mr. West came
onto Mr. Dejoie’s lawn, threatened him, struck him, assaulted his own wife, and
gave conflicting statements that did not match those of several witnesses.
However, Joseph was charged with aggravated battery and firing a weapon into an
occupied vehicle. His charge was later elevated to attempted murder. Joseph’s dad, an Escambia County Sheriff,
asked the prosecuting attorney why the state attorney was pursuing these
charges, when it was clearly self-defense. According to Mr. Dejoie, the prosecuting
attorney responded that it was out of his hands, and that his orders “from
above” were to push this case hard.

During his trial, despite the
witnesses’ testimonies verifying that Mr. West was clearly the aggressor, the
jury found Joseph not guilty of attempted murder, but guilty of firing into an
occupied vehicle. For that charge, Joseph IV faced 20 years in state prison.
What!? NOT GUILTY for shooting a man, but 20 YEARS, under the 10-20-Life Law, for
shooting a car?

This gets even better. Under
Florida law, the prosecutor, NOT THE JUDGE, is the only person eligible to
waive the mandatory minimum!*

Upon learning this, family and
friends of Joseph wrote letters to the prosecutor pleading for leniency. The
victim, Marcus West, when interviewed by the pre-sentencing PSI, said that he
did not want Joseph to go to prison, stating that the only person to suffer if
her dad went to prison would be Joseph’s daughter, De’Ana Moreno Dejoie. The
PSI requested that Mr. Dejoie be given a reduced sentence, stating that he did
not deserve to go to prison at all for this, as it was clearly self-defense. Their
pleas fell on deaf ears. At the July 5, 2012 sentencing, Joseph’s parents spoke
on his behalf.Joseph read a prepared
statement during which he admitted to shooting Mr. West, but reiterated that
his sole intention was to defend himself and his daughter from imminent danger.

The judge stated that he
believed this was an unfortunate incident that had been brewing for a long time
and finally reached a boiling point. He asked the prosecutor if he wished to
waive the mandatory minimum, which the prosecutor refused to do. Of course he
refused to waive the mandatory minimum. It looks good for his office when he
sends the “bad guys” away for a very long time. But, this was not a bad guy.

Joseph Dejoie was employed and
paying child support. He was also a fulltime student, who was in court fighting
for MORE CUSTODY TIME with his daughter just two days prior to this incident.
Additionally, he was on his own front lawn. He did not go out looking for
trouble; trouble came to his front door, and he defended himself.

It is ill-fated when citizens,
in an effort to curtail crime, vote in favor of flawed laws that grant the
power to determine a person’s fate to a prosecuting attorney rather than to the
judge. Why do we even need a judge to preside over criminal cases if his only
power is in ruling in favor of or against objections on the parts of the
opposing attorneys?

Joseph Dejoie IV plans to
appeal the ruling. In the meantime, he has been sentenced to the mandatory
minimum of 20-years in state prison FOR SHOOTING A CAR. This is a
travesty. This man is not a career criminal. He is a victim, who in
self-defense shot an attacker below the waist, and his wounds were not life
threatening. As a result of the prosecutor’s decision to sentence him to the
mandatory minimum, his daughter, who was accustomed to speaking to her dad
every single day, and being with him four days each week, will not hug him
again until she is 28 years-old.

Until citizens stand up to
these injustices and blatant abuses of power at the hands of elected officials,
we will lose many more men like Joseph Dejoie to the system, and more little
girls will suffer the trauma of having their daddies ripped from their lives
and their hearts. We cannot let that happen.

If you wish to reach out to Mr. Dejoie, there
are several ways to help his case and at the same time, make your voice heard.

1 comment:

what this article fails to mention, is that Mr Dejoie has had repeated run ins with the law, dealt drugs and all was wiped away everytime he was arrested due to his father being in law enforcement within this community. Not to mention, his father was also recently in hot water for pulling a weapon on minors whilst he was off duty, driving downtown. This report is extremely one sided and fabricated as Mr. West did not actually assault anyone as it mentions here. In my opinion, the law finally caught up with Mr Dejoie.

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The Sly Fox Film Reviews publishes the content of film critic Kam Williams. Voted Most Outstanding Journalist of the Decade by the Disilgold Soul Literary Review in 2008, Kam Williams is a syndicated film and book critic who writes for 100+ publications around the U.S., Europe, Asia, Africa, Canada and the Caribbean. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Online, the NAACP Image Awards Nominating Committee and Rotten Tomatoes.

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